Albert N. Badre: Usability Evaluation Research

At the GVU Center, a group of researchers, under the direction of Dr. Badre, is developing and testing state-of-the-art usability methods and tools. We are studying and testing tools encompassing a range of capabilities including event logging and session recording, analysis, and visualization; i.e., the details of the human-computer interaction session are automatically recorded by the logging tool, analyzed, and displayed visually. Our research is on-going, and is expected to yield increasingly useful results as testing technology becomes more sophisticated.

Interaction OBServation, Evaluation, Recording and Visualization Environment

We are experimenting with I-Observe, an all-inclusive interface usability evaluation environment which consists of a set of tools designed to facilitate and accelerate the usability evaulation process. The tools support the usability evaluator or analyst by automating a good art of the recording and analysis work.

I-Observe tools consist of:

• Logging tools to record human-computer interaction. These tools range from event logging to videorecording. When multiple recording streams are used, they are automatically synchronized based on their timestamps.
  
  
• Analysis tools to analyze the recorded interaction. These tools go beyond the traditional statistical manalyses by looking at usability evaluation needs and implementing both traditional and innovative usability metrics.
  
  
• Visualization tools to display the results of the logs and of the analyses in adequate forms. Our visualization tools include tools to display analysis results in contextual forms, and tools to combine and synchronize various sets of results and logs to replay or assist the analysis of usability sessions. Examples of visualization screen can be found in the I-Observe Visualizations page.